This passage is so rich in innuendo and sub-meanings of words
that one hardly knows where to begin. But at 1) the whole
wheedling tone of Juno's sly approach rolls out on a slippery
series of hissing sibilants, even down to the prosy word utor
(usa_st) which Vergil rarely touches. The stage is being set
beforehand.......

"Aeole". How simple and openly friendly that vocative rolls out
on its vowels, then switching immediately to the Supreme
Authority and vested power for role and his function of
smoothing the seas. But since Heraclitus, each thing has its
opposite, so she inserts "raising the seas in storm" --- not part of
his contract at all.. Now at 3) "some people who hate me..." are
mentioned calmly, sailing the seas and smuggling something
foreign into a port of ours, actually religious damaged goods
(victos penates). This was all controlled, quiet, but suddenly...

Everything breaks loose in raging anger at 5) and 6), roaring
winds, ships cracked apart, bodies in an instant floating dead on
the waters. But just for a second in her mind's eye, then the
anger hides, and the tone abruptly reverts to smoothness, much
like a flash storm on the Adriatic Sea.

8) "I have 14 lovely ladies......"(Recall Schubert's Erlkoenig with a
similar Grimm fairy tale bribe of a siren.)...... and the fairest of
them all, Deiopeia, is a rolling name that lingers on the tongue as
spoken. But this is no simple pandering, this is serious business
with "conubio stabili", honest to goodness marriage. She says
"conubium" which is marriage between parties in different
status, but still not the same as first-class Roman "coniugium".
But in case the point needs driving home, look at 11) which is
bracketed with acc. of duration "omnes...annos", while inserted
stands that official Roman phrase from the inscriptions: "meritis
pro talibus". When Vergil (as Homer) writes a word over a line
to be the start of the next one, that gives a massive, dominant
emphasis. So here "exigat" virtually puts the stamp and seal on
this contract, and so it will be henceforth! But 12) has a
different message, the most restrained and almost
unmentionable reference to something which will convince the
gaping Aeolus, who is ready to be bribed finally by ---- SEX.

With 13) we turn to Aeolus, leaving out words and compressing
the answer in his groveling Uriah Heep-like manner, jamming
words together in haste, writing over lines, and making some
bad mistakes of judgment. "YOUR role is deciding what you want,
MINE is taking orders." The tu and mihi are too close, too
familiar, he continues with three more "tu" 's, too familiar and
too much repeated, tiresome tutoiement. But watch that word
"iussa", an official word emanating from the high authority of
Iovis, as from the Roman Emperor. He adds "fas est" quite
incorrectly, since fas is a word with religious meaning, and there
is no pietas in this situation.

How typically at 15) this small-
minded grub even demeans his own role, "this little kingdom of
mine, such as it is...", proceeding to the great honor of sitting at
the celestial banquets.

And again with this striking line-emphasis at 16) "concilias", a
most interesting word which he misuses badly. It is a term from
Roman business, "you are acting as my agent..... with God", you
are fixing it up with Him, but there is also the use of conciliare
for "matchmaking", which is what she had been doing for him
with a Nymph. In his excitement he uses the matchmaking word
for the deal between her and the Pater Divum Hominumque.
Aeolus is not only wormlike and ugly, he makes official errors
and misjudgments, which Vergil no doubt witnessed in court
actions during the legal training of his early years.

It may have been for passages like this that Agrippa blamed him
for "tastelessness and mixing common and poetic
dictions"(Donatus). But back in the Augustan world, Horace was
aware of Agrippa's preferences, which were apparently well
known in their literary circle; in Odes I, VI, 7 ff., speaking to
Agrippa, he slips in the phrase " Pelidae stomachum" (!),
clearly twitting the stolid Agrippa with something like "Achilles'
being pissed-off". But to us this wide use of the total word
resources is part of Vergil's immense sense of language, in a way
not unlike Shakespeare's.

With 18) we come to action, marked by the hard unvoiced
guttural -c- (cavum... conversa cuspide) and in true Homeric
fashion with the emphatic word starting off line 19) "IMPULIT"
we smash into the side of the mountain in a flurry of tough,
resonant sounds (the nasals and liquids of montem, impulit,
latus). From there on it is all action on the waters and music on
the palette of Vergil's wonderful sense of tonalities.